Overview - Dossier: Mood and atmosphere studies in Brazil. (Mediações, vol. 31, n.1 – 2026/1)

Organizers: Paulo Gajanigo (UFF) and Manuela de Mattos Salazar (University of Sussex).

Over the last two decades, we have seen the development of a field of research and studies that take the ethereal aspects of social phenomena as their focus of analysis. Certain concepts and categories have served to produce this focus: atmosphere, mood, climate, mood, Stimmung, vibe, structure of feelings, ambience, among others. Each of these evokes specific intellectual contexts in their formulation and development. Recently, however, they have come to find common environments of exchange and articulation, driven in general by the effects of the "affective turn" (Griffero, 2019). Today, therefore, it is possible to identify several initiatives that are following the path of the constitution of a field of study, whose name can be drafted as Mood Studies.

Como indícios da construção desse campo, podemos citar os seguintes dossiês em revistas: "In the mood" na New Literary History (Felski; Fraiman, 2012); "Mood work" na New Formations (Highmore; Taylor, 2014); "Staging Atmospheres: Materiality, Culture, and the Texture of the In-Between" na Emotion, Space and Society Journal (Bjerregaard; Sørensen, 2015); "The Meaning of Moods" na Philosophia (Krebs; Ben-Ze'ev, 2017); "Moods" na Studi di Estetica (Griffero, 2019); e "Atmosphere and Mood" na Art Style (Sauer; Wang, 2023). Além desses, podemos também citar publicações coletâneas como Atmosphere/Atmospheres: testing a new paradigm (Griffero; Moretti, 2018); Atmosphere and aesthetics: a plural perspective (Griffero; Tedeschi, 2019); Mood: Perspectivas interdisciplinares, novas teorias (Breidenbach; Docherty, 2016); Atmospheres and Shared Emotions (Trigg, 2022); além de dezenas de mesas redondas, seminários e sessões temáticas.

It is possible to identify certain intellectual traditions that have served as the main sources for building this field (Gajanigo, 2024). One of these is phenomenology, especially the work of Hermann Schmitz from the late 1960s onwards, whose centrality to the concept of atmosphere has inspired studies with notable development in recent decades. Gernot Böhme's (1993) contribution, for example, points to atmosphere as the main element of what he calls the new aesthetics; Tim Ingold (2012b) uses the concept to highlight the impossibility of a theory of the subject separated from corporeality/materiality. On the subject of atmospheres, there is also a notable development of studies that focus on urban and architectural issues, demonstrated, for example, by the international network Ambiances, which has given institutional consistency to the field of Mood Studies. Created by Jean-Paul Thibaud, it houses research that deals with the "sensorial conception of architectural and urban spaces and the understanding of the ontologies, forms and powers of the affective intensities of atmospheres".

Another term, also of Germanic origin, is Stimmung. Present for centuries in philosophical discussions, it has been taken up again especially since Heidegger's formulation, for whom Stimmung is the condition of being-there of being thrown into the world, of tuning in to the world. As a mode of affectation, Stimmung has often been translated in studies by the English term mood. Taken from the Heideggerian Stimmung, mood departs from the concept of emotion, with which it is often confused. Mood, because it influences "the way one perceives rather than the content perceived, leads only indirectly to behavior and does not directly motivate emotions." (Griffero, 2019a, p.133-134). This meaning demonstrates why the field of Mood Studies is not absorbed, even partially, by the Sociology of Emotions. In fact, it can be understood as closer to Cultural Studies, particularly based on the way feelings and affections were treated by its initial generation. Authors referenced in Cultural Studies have worked on the term mood in relation to Raymond Williams' concept of feeling structure (Anderson, 2009; Highmore, 2017; Coleman, 2018). The pre-discursive focus of both concepts has served as a link between them.

The Social Sciences tend to benefit from the development of Mood Studies. Several themes dear to our discipline are touched by the proposals, with approaches focused on the ethereal aspect of social phenomena. For example, Tim Ingold's aforementioned contribution on atmosphere ties in with his proposal for ecological anthropology (2012a). In addition, the term mood, understood beyond individual emotions, challenges approaches to studies on public mood and mood analysis in virtual social networks (Gajanigo, 2024). Although Hartmut Rosa (2019) does not make explicit use of concepts such as Stimmung or Atmosphere, his use of the idea of resonance is close to the contributions we have mapped here and challenges, as Mood Studies does, the primacy of rationality in understanding the public sphere.

In Brazil, we have identified few initiatives around Mood Studies, but they already indicate a growing relevance of this field among us. The lack of a correlated term for mood or Stimmung can be a difficulty in visualizing a unity in the field of research, and can also hinder its own construction as a field. The main epicenter today has been around the term Stimmung and focuses fundamentally on studies of aesthetics, art and literature. Much of this is due to the influence of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht in Brazil, especially since the publication in Portuguese of Atmosfera, ambiência, Stimmung: sobre um potencial oculto da literatura (2015). In the last decade, we can find studies that evoke the notion of ambience, aura and the affective tone of the term in research on art and architecture (Sträter, 2008; Müller, 2013; Coradini, 2013; Magno; Costa, 2017; Amaral, 2018; Duarte et al., 2023), electronic games (Aguiar, 2016; Reis, 2018) and historiography (Araújo, 2009; Rangel, 2016). The discussion of atmosphere has mainly taken place via art, architecture and anthropology through the reception of authors such as Tim Ingold (Couto, 2017), Gernot Böhme (Cajaíba, 2008; Carvalho, 2016, Salazar, 2023), as well as Gumbrecht himself. In the case of the concept of "structure of feeling", it was first appropriated in Brazil at the turn of the century (Cevasco, 2001; Ridenti, 2000, Lopes, 1999). But there is a renewed interest, influenced by this new climate that we are dealing with here, visible in studies on communication (Moraes, 2016, Marquioni, 2018) and sociology (Miglievich-Ribeiro; Fernandes, 2017; Miglievich-Ribeiro, 2018; Girelli, 2018; Silva, 2019), and, in particular, by the articulation between structure of feelings and affection carried out by Lawrence Grossberg (Gutmann, 2015; Gajanigo, 2016; Gomes; Antunes, 2019). Finally, there are quite recent studies that seek to articulate concepts between these traditions, operationalizing them within the common concern of what we believe to be the basis of Mood Studies (Miglievich-Ribeiro, 2021; Cestari, 2018; Gajanigo, 2020 and 2024). 

The proposal for this dossier is part of this effort to strengthen the field in the country. The aim is, in an unprecedented way, to offer a common space for contemporary productions that have been inspired by the contributions of this field and to encourage dialog between research that uses one or more of these concepts. In particular, the dossier also aims to reinforce the relevance of discussions within Mood Studies for the Social Sciences. We call on colleagues to submit studies and research based on various themes that have made up the concerns of this field: Political climates and public spheres; The relationship between mood and the virtual environment; Atmospheric presences in urban space; Atmospheres and aesthetic regimes; Mood studies and the environmental question; Structures of feeling and politics; Methodologies in the context of Mood Studies; State of the art of Mood Studies concepts; Climatic textures and sensory ethnography; Mood studies in the Brazilian or Latin American context; Climate or atmosphere studies in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic; Media and mood studies; Mood and epistemological criticism.